Kenya's Safaricom has become Africa's first Cloudflare Managed Services partner.

This comes as the telco today announced a partnership with Cloudflare, a cyber security provider, and Copycat, an East African systems integrator, to deliver integrated cyber security services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The Safaricom deal comes as analysts warn that Africa has become a hub for cyber criminals targeting many industries, including SMEs.

According to the latest Mimecast Global Threat Intelligence Report 2024 H1, African SMEs continue to confront the biggest volume of cyber-attacks.

Moving on, Safaricom says its new alliance would give a comprehensive digital security stack to Kenyan enterprises.

Safaricom adds that its new security plans will allow SMES to access high-quality cyber security solutions for enterprises of all sizes at reasonable prices.

Cynthia Kropac, Safaricom's chief enterprise business officer, commented on the collaboration: "By leveraging Cloudflare's solutions, such as zero trust services and email security hosted locally in data centres within Kenya, we are investing in a future-proof infrastructure that provides every customer with robust and advanced cyber threat protection."

According to Graham Turnbull, managing executive of Cloudflare, the alliance is about providing companies with digital security solutions that enhance productivity.

He said: “The partnership with Safaricom is bringing comprehensive and effective digital security solutions closer to business owners to enable them to focus on optimising productivity and service, with a software that guarantees progress.”

In the case of Vishal Patel, managing director of Copycat, the relationship enables entities to work together to create dependable digital infrastructure to help businesses navigate their digital transformations.